Students launch Asian Jewish Union
The new affinity group has seen notable growth as it continues to promote and foster a community for Asian Jews through events, outreach and collaboration with other Yale organizations.

Courtesy of Zach Pan
On Dec. 6, the Slifka Center held its first Asian Themed Shabbat, predicting an attendance of roughly 80 people. But the event proved to be more popular than anticipated when nearly 300 people gathered in Slifka for the Asian Jewish Union’s debut.
Benjamin Nuland ’27 and Zach Pan ’27, co-presidents and founders of the Asian Jewish Union, speculated that the previously held Spanish Themed Shabbat helped pique curiosity about what a potential Asian Themed Shabbat would look like. They credited most of the event’s success to the group’s marketing strategies and continuous outreach. They also worked with the Slifka Center, the AACC, Asianish and other organizations in promoting and funding their event.
“We put it everywhere. So Slifka newsletter, AACC Newsletter, all the Slifka group chats, on Instagram stories. We partnered also with Asianish. They sent it out to all their people. We had it on the Slifka website, I think the AACC website. So this is very well advertised, and I remember, as leaving Silliman, I heard someone on the phone, ‘oh, are you coming to Asian Shabbat tonight?’” Pan said.
Pan and Nuland also spent time curating the entree and dessert menus, sourcing kosher ingredients, decorating the Slifka Center with multicolored paper gloves and red paper cranes, and working with the chefs from the Slifka kitchen to ensure that the dishes were the most authentic that they could be.
“The thing is, they have a supplier, a kosher supplier,” Pan said in reference to the Slifka kitchen. “So to make this all kosher, in advance, we gave recipes and ideas to the Slifka kitchen, and then they sourced all the ingredients from a kosher supplier. And then we had a taste test at 2 p.m., I think, the day of, where the Chef, Dave, made all the dishes and Jamin and I went with a couple of other students, and we tweaked the recipes a little bit to make them look a little bit more authentic. After that, they mass produced all the food.”
The catering concluded with mochi for dessert. There was both a dairy-free strawberry option and a green tea option to fully accommodate any dietary restrictions. The mochi, however, ran out quickly due to the large number of attendees and was eventually supplemented with donuts.
Nuland added that next year’s Asian Themed Shabbat would need a signup sheet with restrictions on how many people can come since such a high turnout could potentially be a security issue.
Only a few months ago, the Asian Jewish Union had four members. Now, it has 40, and it is only continuing to grow as events like the Asian Themed Shabbat have drawn attention.
Natalie Semmel ’25, a member of the Union, reflected that Asian Shabbat was a wonderful way to be able to connect with two communities that she belonged to. She was already very involved with Slifka when she met Nuland in the fall of 2023. She enjoyed being able to celebrate both of her identities at the same time and with other people.
“It’s kind of amazing to be able to talk about our Bat Mitzvahs in the same conversation as talking about our experiences of being in Chinese classes at Yale as second or third generation speakers of the language,” said Semmel.
Pan told the News that plans for the Union began in a buttery earlier this year.
“I was in the Stiles buttery. And I met another Asian Jew, and I had not met any Asian Jews at home. It just occurred to us that we should start a group. At least for me, it was really unique to come here and to find other Asian Jews. Yeah, it was a buttery idea that came into fruition,” Pan said.
Pan approached Nuland, and they got to work, reaching out to the Slifka center and the Asian American Cultural Center for funding and resources. A big help in the development of the Union was the agility of the Slifka center, which helped them get approved quickly. After getting approved, the Union was able to receive funding, have dinners and find new members within just a couple weeks.
Nuland told the News that the Union aims to provide a space where Asian Jews can feel comfortable and explore these two identities.
“There are Asian Jews that don’t necessarily feel Jewish as they’re in a Jewish synagogue, but they also don’t necessarily feel as Asian when they’re in Asian communities. And so the real mission of our club is to kind of create this safe space for Asian Americans as well as for Asian Jews as well as creating a web of networks,” Nuland said.
Nuland discussed other initiatives that the group is taking to extend this community beyond just the Yale campus. For example, the Union is an affiliate with the Lunar Collective, a national organization and the only organization for Asian American Jews. They also have communicated with other schools, such as Princeton University, that have a similar affinity group for Asian Jews.
“We’ve already reached out to the Princeton Jasians which are a group that have been established, and they’re one of the rare groups of Asian Jews that exist as a true collective,” Nuland said. “We tried to reach out to Harvard, but there is no Asian Jewish group at Harvard, which was really surprising. The next stop, perhaps, is looking at the regional hubs of New York to see if the New York based schools have an Asian Jewish group.”
Pan hoped that in ten years hundreds of Yalies might pass through the Union.
“We could have a reunion and have some sort of alumni network because, already, just after a year or so, you have 40 people, and at that level, in 10 years, we’d have several hundred alumni. So, yeah, we have very ambitious plans for the group,” Pan said.
The Asian Jewish Union most recently hosted a Lunar New Year Celebration in collaboration with Asian-ish. The event featured scallion pancakes, beef noodles, vegetarian and chicken fried rice and pastries. Similar to the Asian Themed Shabbat, they underestimated attendance to be roughly 25 only to welcome 112 guests from the Asian and Jewish community and beyond, according to Nuland.
Kaya Dierks ’26, co-President of Asian-ish, said that it is important for their group to collaborate with the Asian Jewish Union since there is a lot of overlap between the two groups. She described the groups as having a lot of “resonance” with each other.
“Bringing us to spaces together allows us to talk about everything that we have in common and what it means to be Asian American when our identities also expand within that category in ways that may not be expected,” said Dierks.
The Slifka Center is located at 80 Wall St.